As a startup, the greatest benifit of cloud compute isn't the fact that I can scale up at the push of a button, but that I can scale DOWN at the push of a button. I want to test things on beefy systems, but I don't want to have to pay for those systems any longer than I need to use them. To me, this is the single best thing about cloud compute.
Once your start up has become an established company and are so busy that you are no longer able to scale down regularly, it seems that's the time to start having your own compute vs continuing to line the pockets of the cloud providers.
Yeah, that's my thinking. Also as a small startup they don't benefit from confiscating your profits through price discrimination; if anything, they benefit from "investing" in you as a customer, to help you get to profitability, while remaining as addicted as possible to their services.
Once your start up has become an established company and are so busy that you are no longer able to scale down regularly, it seems that's the time to start having your own compute vs continuing to line the pockets of the cloud providers.